CLEVELAND, Ohio — She’s not attending this week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, but the name of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is coming up repeatedly at the podium at Quicken Loans Arena and in the stands.
“I don’t know how any public official in West Virginia can strongly get behind Hillary Clinton if they care about the West Virginia economy,” said Patrick Morrisey, state attorney general, during an appearance on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline” from Cleveland.
He was defending the repeat attacks on Clinton from convention speakers, including U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) who spoke on Tuesday night.
“She can’t be trusted with classified information or trusted to play by the same rules that you and I play by and, without trust, we cannot feel safe and we cannot thrive,” Capito said of Clinton.
“No one who has lost the trust of the American people should ever serve as our president.”
Morrisey agreed. When asked about Trump’s trustworthiness, he cited policy and pledged differences between Trump and Clinton on coal, EPA regulations, Supreme Court nominations and other issues.
“He was not my first choice in the primary,” Morrisey admitted. “But I am very comfortable with that choice between Hillary Clinton and Trump because I think Hillary Clinton would mean bad things for the country, disastrous things for West Virginia.”
Against Clinton, 2nd District Congressman Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), a former supporter of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-W.Va.), does not see Trump as “the lesser of two evils.”
“I would like to call it the better of the two options,” Mooney said on “Talkline.”
Mooney was looking for Cruz to clearly back Trump during his scheduled RNC speech on Wednesday night.
“It’s a binary choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I know there were things said and done in the past, but that’s over,” said Mooney who has publicly endorsed Trump.
West Virginia’s 34 delegates to the Republican National Convention, which continues through Thursday, cast votes for Trump during Tuesday’s roll call that ended with Trump’s official nomination.
The Democratic National Convention opens on Monday in Philadelphia, Pa.
The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 8. Oct. 18 is the deadline to register to vote or to change voter registration information in West Virginia.